After four special thematic issues of “Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History”,1this is the first “open” issue, addressing a broad range of topics. It gives us the opportunity to publish articles which correspond to the image and aims of the journal but which cannot be assigned to one of the main themes scheduled for forthcoming issues.2 Henceforth, one of the three issues in each volume will be an “open” issue; authors are invited to submit contributions well in advance.

Among the essays in this issue is Till van Rahden’s analysis of gender roles and images of fatherhood in the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany. By focusing on the history and reception of the verdict of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1959, which declared that the “paternal casting vote” was unconstitutional, the author shows how contemporary debates about paternal “authority” contributed to the democratization of the Federal Republic, and discusses the issues at stake. Two other essays likewise deal with the Federal Republic, but adopt a comparative and transnational approach - which is particularly appropriate when investigating social movements, for example. Holger Nehring describes the forms of protest used by (West) German and British anti-nuclear-weapons movements during the late 1950s and early 1960s. This essay reveals supranational commonalities and mutual observations or references made by each of the movements, as well as characteristics specific to each nation. Thomas Etzemüller compares the West German and Swedish protest movements which culminated in 1968. As Etzemüller observes, although “1968” in Sweden was less spectacular than in West Germany, the two movements shared some structural similarities. The article by Gerhard Paul takes up the theme of our previous issue on “Wars after the Second World War”: Paul dissects the emergence and subsequent usage of one of the most well-known photographs taken during the Vietnam War, which shows the naked and crying girl Kim Phúc. Paul reveals clues showing how this image was gradually decontextualized and charged with unhistorical and above all religious meanings.

The interview in this issue focuses on the value of photographs as historical sources - albeit not from the point of view of a historian, but from that of a famous photographer. Barbara Klemm, who worked for many years as a photographer for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, talks about her pictures in relation to contemporary history. Although the press is a fleeting medium designed for the rapid use and consumption of information, many of Klemm’s photographs have become key documents whose statements grow clearer and more powerful as time passes.

The debate section is devoted to the relations between contemporary history and historical didactics - two subdisciplines in the field of history which share much common ground and several points of contact, but which communicate little with one another at present. The essays by Martin Sabrow, Stefan Jordan, Dietmar von Reeken and Simone Rauthe are intended to spark discussion about the tasks, achievements and shortcomings of historical didactics in a contemporary historical perspective.

In the sources section, Christoph Hamann analyzes the photograph of Peter Fechter, who was killed when trying to cross the Berlin Wall in 1962 - an image which rapidly became known as a symbol of the division of Germany and of the Cold War. With his application of iconographical research methods and reception history, Hamann demonstrates how contemporary historical, historical didactic and art historical elements tend to converge and interact when dealing with photographs. Bernd Lindner’s contribution also addresses questions relevant to both contemporary history and art history. He presents Wolfgang Mattheuer’s sculpture “Century Step” (“Jahrhundertschritt”, 1984) - an allegory of the twentieth century which encapsulates the artist’s contradictory biography and the ambivalent sentiments characteristic of life during the last years of the German Democratic Republic, which nonetheless remain impressive after the end of the GDR.

The reviews section begins with Bernd Stöver’s commentary on the website of the “Cold War International History Project”. Annette Weinke reviews the similarly wide-ranging material contained in the Fritz Bauer Institute’s DVD about the first Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, which was one of the key events within the debate over National Socialism in the Federal Republic during the 1960s. In our series on “rediscovered classics”, Albrecht Weisker examines Theodor Eschenburg’s book on the “Rule of the Associations?” (“Herrschaft der Verbände?”) published in 1955, followed by Kurt Seifert’s reading of Rudolf Bahro’s work “The Alternative” (“Die Alternative”) from 1977, which was widely read in both East and West. Both of these books are still topical today, albeit for different reasons - for whereas Eschenburg’s book criticizes the expansionism of associations as a danger to parliamentary democracy, Bahro’s book combines a philosophical inquiry into the foundations of a humane social order with an ecological inquiry into the preservation of the basic necessities of life. As usual, we round off this issue with a Review Digest containing information about new publications in the field of contemporary history.